13
E
E
INTRODUCTION
How It Works - A Very Unique Camera
Land & Sea
®
The SeaLife Reefmaster Digital Land & Sea camera allows you to choose
between Land Mode for taking land pictures and Sea Mode for taking
underwater pictures. This is essential for taking great pictures and achieving the
perfect picture exposure.
Sea Mode: If the camera is set to Sea Mode and used inside the Underwater
Camera Housing, the camera is programmed to automatically find the best
exposure control combination in an underwater environment. The internal
sensor reads the light conditions through the lens (TTL). It evaluates the whole
picture in 64 segments with higher priority in the center. Then it automatically
sets the correct exposure time, lens opening, and sensitivity. You may hear a
slight clicking noise when you move the camera to different light conditions.
SeaLife Research has tested several thousand combinations to achieve the
optimal exposure controls. In the Sea mode, the slowest exposure time
underwater is 1/30 seconds. If the surrounding light is too dark, the flash will fire
automatically. While in the Sea mode, the camera flash will actually fire two,
three or four times depending on the distance to the subject. The weaker
flashes, called a pre-flash, is used to determine the brightness and reflection of
whatever you’re taking a picture of. The primary flash will fire 0.2 seconds after
the pre-flash (hardly noticeable). Only the primary flash is used by the camera
for properly exposing the final picture. The combination of the pre-flashes and
main flash ensures the optimal exposure setting for the camera.
In order to avoid underwater “backscatter” (spots that show up in pictures
caused by tiny particles in the water) and get more vivid colors, we
recommend that you use the SeaLife External Flash, which is sold
separately. You can even use two external flashes, like the pros do, in order to
eliminate shadows in your pictures. When using the SeaLife External Flash, you
must set the camera to the External Flash Mode. The External Flash Mode does
not use a pre-flash, since this would cause the external flash to fire during the
pre-flash and not during the primary flash.
If you are taking close-up pictures in very low light or even total darkness with
the SeaLife Macro lenses and you experience overflashing from a reflective fish
or object, you have the choice of immediately deleting the image by pressing the
shutter button again within 3 seconds (the monitor will show you the picture and
display “DELETE THIS?”). You can then redirect the flash by moving the flexible
flash arm or attaching the flash diffuser. The Flash Diffuser is an accessory that
can be clipped on to the external flash head. The system gives you many
options to create great photos under many different conditions and using the
various flashes or lens accessories.
continued on following page
